


Echoes

by alyse



Category: King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Genre: Gen, Introspection, Mysticism, Pre-Movie(s), Vignette, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2017-12-21
Packaged: 2019-02-18 04:18:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13092249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyse/pseuds/alyse
Summary: She hears it on the wind first, a whisper and nothing more.The world is a hard, cold place these days, now that Merlin is lost, but the Mage is growing used to it.





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hiddencait](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddencait/gifts).



> Happy Yule!

She hears it on the wind first, a whisper and nothing more.

There's a chill to the air; winter is coming and the mountains grow colder but it's not safe for her kind to linger in the valleys, not anymore. But still she hesitates for a moment, straining her senses, searching for that elusive sound, that barely there brush against her skin.

But there's nothing, no matter how hard she reaches for it. 

Hope died with the King.

The world was set aflame when the dragon fell.

-o-

The world is a hard, cold place these days, now that Merlin is lost, but she's growing used to it. She's always been a solitary soul and that hasn't changed, not when she is as steady as the earth. She endures as she always has and the mountains will still be here long after her bones have turned to dust. If there isn't another soul for miles, so be it. She's never felt the same kind of kinship for humans that some of her brethren have; men live such short, violent lives, so full of a kind of grace that's wasted on them.

Instead she listens out for the sharp cry of the eagle, the skittering thump of rabbits, the slow, dry slither of scales and the harsh crack as something dies.

Even this world isn't empty if you know how to look.

-o-

That whisper comes again, slow and insistent like the soft susurration of rain.

This time she doesn't pause to listen, doesn't strain to catch the sound. She listens for other sounds instead, stretching out her senses as far as they will go, but it's all in vain. Her people were scattered when Merlin fell, when Uther Pendragon was ripped from the world and an open wound was left in his place.

And now her people's voices are falling silent, one by one.

She is solitary by nature but even she feels the gap each leaves behind, the hole in the world that once they filled.

She has always been alone but until now she's never felt lonely, never felt that keen sting of absence when the world has always been full of life.

But she feels it now, and in that absence she can no longer find it in herself to care about the affairs of men.

-o-

She dreams of her sister but even her dreams are cold now.

Nimuë is colder still. Her skin is as pale as winter snow and her eyes are shadowed, dark and grieving. "Sister," she whispers, and her voice is the faint cry of seagulls, already fading as the Mage reaches for her.

But she cannot catch hold and her sister's icy fingers slip through her grasp. She's left watching helplessly as her beloved Nimuë sinks into depths where she cannot follow, down and down until even Nimuë's light is dimmed.

When she wakes her face is wet and the damp traces of her sister's footsteps are already drying in the pale winter sunlight, disappearing from this world as her sister fades into the next.

Her screams join the eagles' but it is too late. Nimuë is gone, leaving only the Lady behind.

-o-

This world grows colder still as the last of her people leave it. She feels them flicker like the embers of a dying fire and then one by one go out, slipping behind the veil and leaving nothing but traces, echoes of themselves in myth and legend, behind.

Their time has come but hers has not and she grieves it, that she should be left behind to shoulder a burden she never asked for, to carry a weight that she thinks she cannot bear.

That whisper comes again but again she shuts it out, turning her face away from the sun and burying herself in the comforting earth.

Merlin trod here once, he who raised the Dragon and in doing so damned them all. Traces of him still linger here, echoing in the crystal halls. She catches glimpses of him as she winds her way deeper into the hills, caught in the smooth surfaces of the walls that were carved when the world was new. 

His dark eyes are kind and unforgiving.

"You cannot grieve forever, child," he murmurs, and the sound is nothing but echoes caught in the gentle winding streams, in the slow, tinkling drip of water from the ceilings of the galleries she passes through.

He is wrong; she is the Mage and her lifespan is measured in centuries as man counts the years. She can grieve forever if she must.

She will grieve forever as her people leave her.

"Guinevere," he whispers as she passes by, but she shuts her ears to him and flees into the sun.

-o-

Her sister was water, and Merlin was the deep crystal caves, but she is the air and the earth. She cannot deny her nature forever; her eyes are keen, her heart soars and her soul is steady, as solid as the rocks beneath her feet.

Merlin was wrong. She can grieve forever but that does not mean she cannot live.

She takes the mountains with her, rooted in her soul and carved into her spine, as she makes her way back to the land of men. The woods she passes through are not as wide and wild as they once were but are now scarred and blackened where men have been, and her heart still grieves.

But there is iron at the heart of her now, and the fire of its forging runs through her veins.

She pauses to drink at a deep-running stream that is still clear and cold, fed by the snow in the peaks. It brings the strength of the mountains down into the valley, and maybe that is why she opens her eyes when she's drunk her fill to find her sister staring back at her from the water's depths, as beautiful as she has always been but so remote now, a reflection of all that she once was and no more.

"Sister," she whispers, and the Lady of the Lake smiles up at her, so sweetly sad that Guinevere can scarcely bear it.

But bear it she must. They both have their parts to play in what is to come.

That whisper comes again, stronger now, carried on the wind, through the earth, in the water still flowing past her feet. It echoes throughout the land, still soft but growing stronger with every heartbeat.

This time Guinevere listens to the message it brings.

 _At last,_ it sighs. _The King has come again._

the end


End file.
